Seamus Heaney

Tel: (028) 9097 3261/5103

E-mail: english@qub.ac.uk

Entrance Requirements: a good Honours degree.

Restrictions to entry for International Students: No

Duration: 1 year full-time or 2 years part-time

Number of course places: Subject to staff availability

Aim: this course is designed to equip students to use their literary talents to the best of their ability, encourage development as independent writers and self-reflective lifelong learners, and provide them with a broad understanding of the literary marketplace and of the commercial aspects of literary production.

Course Content:

Semester 1:

110ENG790 Craft and Technique (compulsory)

All students on the M.A. must take this module which is taught in a two-hour weekly seminar.The module deals with a range of key issues in creative writing, including: aspects of craft; the development of technique; the demands of structure; and approaches to characterisation.The class also focuses on the work of writers, from Aristotle to Heaney, who have written about the process of writing itself.A series of appropriate creative and critical exercises then culminates in students’ final projects.

110ENG791 Poetry: Creative Writing Workshop 1

This is a two-hour weekly workshop to which students bring their poems to be discussed with the convenor and the other students.Some workshops may also be conducted by visiting poets.

110ENG792 Fiction: Creative Writing Workshop 1

This is a two-hour weekly workshop to which students bring their fiction to be discussed with the convenor and other students. Some workshops may also be conducted by visiting fiction writers.

110ENG797 Scriptwriting: Creative Writing Workshop 1

This is a two-hour weekly workshop to which students bring their scripts to be discussed with the convenor and other students. Some workshops may also be conducted by visiting script writers.

Semester 2:

210ENG793 The Practice of Writing (compulsory)

All students on the M.A. must take this module which is taught by tutors and by visiting speakers with a practical knowledge of the literary, publishing and media worlds.The class focuses on such matters as preparing work for publication, making book proposals, rewriting and editing, the role of the literary agent, different kinds of publishing outlets, 'researching' a book, the relation between print media and other media, reviewing, writing for newspapers, magazines and journals.During the module, students undertake appropriate practical exercises which culminate in their final project.

210ENG794 Poetry: Creative Writing Workshop 2

This is a two-hour weekly workshop to which students bring their poems to be discussed with the convenor and the other students.Some workshops may also be conducted by visiting poets.

210ENG795 Fiction: Creative Writing Workshop 2

This is a two-hour weekly workshop to which students bring their fiction to be discussed with the convenor and other students. Some workshops may also be conducted by visiting fiction writers.

210ENG796 Scriptwriting: Creative Writing Workshop 2

This is a two-hour weekly workshop to which students bring their scripts to be discussed with the convenor and other students. Some workshops may also be conducted by visiting script writers. and a dissertation of up to 20,000 words comprising a portfolio of creative writing.

and a Dissertation of up to 15,000 words on an agreed

Assessment: written portfolios.

Funding: DEL, AHRC, limited University and School funding, Lisa Richards Agency Bursary

Contact: Dr Philip McGowan, Director of Postgraduate Education, School of English

Tel: (028) 9097 3261/5103

E-mail: english@qub.ac.uk

Entrance Requirements: A good Honours degree in English or Joint or Combined Honours with English as a major subject.

Restrictions to entry for International Students: No

Duration: 1 year full-time or 2 years part-time.

Number of Course Places: Subject to staff availability.

Aim: To provide students with the opportunity to develop an in-depth knowledge and understanding of a range of Irish writing in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Course Content:

SEMESTER 1: WEEKS 1-12

Compulsory modules:

110ENG715  Irish Intellectual History: Swift to the Irish Literary Revival

This module surveys Irish intellectual history from 1690 to the period of the Irish Literary Revival.  Beginning with Jonathan Swift, George Berkely and Edmund Burke, the module considers the Irish contribution to and reaction against the Enlightenment through an examination of different kinds of writing, considering how questions about language, idealism and subjectivity are informed by wider epistemological, moral and political concerns.  Other writers considered in this section of the module include Maria Edgeworth, Anne Devlin, James Clarence Mangan, John Mitchel and William Carleton.  The second half of the module considers the emergence of an Irish Romanticism leading up to the Revival.  In this part of the module, students will read work by W B Yeats, Matthew Arnold, J M Synge, Augusta Gregory, Oscar Wilde and James Joyce.  There is an emphasis throughout the module on the relationship between Ireland and Modernity.

110ENG720  Research Methods

SEMESTER 2: WEEKS 1-6

Compulsory Module:

205ENG700  Northern Ireland Since the 1960's

This compulsory half-module examines the intersections between culture and politics in Northern Ireland during the course of what is commonly called the ‘Troubles’. The module considers the cultural debates in this period and the ways in which various cultural forms responded to and were conditioned by politics. Topics considered will include the Field Day debates, the ways in which poetry, fiction and cinema dealt with the Troubles and the consequent critical response, the Peace Process and the Good Friday Agreement.

Plus 1 from:

205ENG701 Joyce, Social Joyce, Cultural Politics & Literary Pragmatics

This six-week module will examine James Joyce's Occasional, Critical, and Political Writing (OUP, 2000; ed. K Barry) and Ulysses (1922 reprint; 1984/86 critical edition) in the context of socio-cultural and political issues of the 1910s and 1920s. Emphasis will fall upon due regard for Joyce's emergent cultural politics and the pragmatics of literary production and reception of his contentious, experimental, often scandalous, often humorous, journalistic and literary discourses. Depending upon the inclinations of participants, we may examine either Chapter 5 or 12 of Finnegans Wake in this context.

205ENG702  Irish Writing 1920-1960

The period 1920-1960 has been overshadowed by the critical emphasis on the Revival and contemporary periods. This was the period of Partition, Civil War, state formation and modernisation in both North and South, and the ‘Emergency’. Through a consideration of selected prose, poetry, drama and critical writings by such writers as Samuel Beckett, Elizabeth Bowen, Austin Clarke, Teresa Deevy, St John Ervine, John Hewitt, Denis Johnston, Patrick Kavanagh, Louis MacNeice, Flann O’Brien, Kate O’Brien, Forrest Reid, Francis Stuart, and Sam Thompson, this module will consider received opinions about the literature and culture of the period (e.g. isolationism, the emergence of realism, the predominance of the short story) and try to establish some of the actualities. There will be an element of student choice on this module.

205ENG703 Modern Irish Drama and the European Avant-Garde 1

This module examines Irish drama of the late 19th - early 20th century in relation to developments in European theatre during this period. The work of leading Irish playwrights of the day will be considered against some of the most influential dramas of the period. These include the work of Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Frank Wedekind, Maurice Maeterlinck, Alfred Jarry and Oscar Kokoschka. Consideration of their work will provide a context for examining the theatrical vision of Oscar Wilde, Augusta Gregory, J.M. Synge, George Bernard Shaw and W.B. Yeats. Among the issues examined will be the relation between naturalism and symbolism, tradition and experiment, populism and elitism, tragedy and comedy.

205ENG704 The Irish Gothic

Following on from some of the ideas about sensibility, sympathy, terror and the sublime discussed in the first semester, we will engage in a reading of some of the best known and some of the least known Gothic fictions of nineteenth-century Ireland. Texts will include C. R. Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer, Michael Banim’s Crohoore of the Bill-hook, Jane Wilde’s translation of Sidonia the Sorceress, Charlotte Riddell’s The Nun’s Curse,and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

205ENG705 Yeats and the Philosophers

Yeats’s repeated pronouncements on philosophy were usually categorical and often idiosyncratic. This module examines the extent and significance of his philosophical interests and examines their influence on his work. The poet’s life-long preoccupation with Plato and with Nietzsche, his late sponsorship of Berkeley over Locke, and his strong interest in the political philosophy of Edmund Burke will be explored in some detail over this six-week module.

205ENG706 The White Goddess: text, context, intertext

Robert Graves’s The White Goddess is a text that has baffled and infuriated scholars since it was first published in 1948. It has proved profoundly influential on poets in Britain and Ireland – among them Ted Hughes, John Montague, Seamus Heaney, and Derek Mahon. It has similarly frustrated generations of women poets and feminist critics. It has its roots in the Irish Literary Revival, in which Graves’s father was involved, and it has been seen as a foundational text of 1960s New Age mysticism. At its heart is Graves’s problematical relation with W.B.Yeats, and his experience of two world wars. In this module, The White Goddess will be evaluated as a form of literary criticism and a work of Celtic mythology. Its influence on, and intervention in, critical debates about poetry – including the relation of poetry to myth, feminist critiques of mythology, the politics of poetic form, and psychoanalytical modes of interpretation – through the 20th century will also be examined.

SEMESTER 2: WEEKS 7-12

205ENG707 Autobiography

From Wolfe Tone and Anne Devlin to the currently popular miserable male memoir, autobiography has been a constant in Irish writing and yet remains largely unexplored. Building on some of the texts and ideas considered in Irish Intellectual History, this module will look at the development of autobiography in Ireland and will consider questions of genre and modes of address, the relation of text and history, the construction of subjectivity, and the reasons why this genre has been critically overlooked. The major focus will be on autobiographies by writers (e.g. W.B. Yeats, Sean O’Casey, Augusta Gregory, Sean O’Faolain, Elizabeth Bowen) but there will be an opportunity to consider autobiographies from other sources (e.g. political figures and critics) as well. Students will have a degree of choice in regard to texts studied on this module.

205ENG708 Gender & Critical Theory

We shall be reading a selection of critical writings on psychoanalysis, discourse analysis, and post colonial theory, probing the relevance of such writings to matters of gender. Alongside readings from Freud, Foucault, Spivak, Carby, Butler and other theorists, we will look at some examples of feminist and/or queer practices in Ireland. Possible case studies include Samuel Beckett Roger Casement, Dorothy Cross, Enya, Mary Lavin, Medbh McGuckian, Alice Maher, Pat Murphy and Stephen Rea.

205ENG709 Modern Irish Drama and the European Avant-Garde 2

This module surveys the development of Irish drama through the course of the 20th century in the context of more general changes in European theatre. Taking the later period of the Irish Literary Revival as its point of departure, the focus will be upon the drama of W.B. Yeats, Sean O’Casey, Samuel Beckett, Brian Friel and Frank McGuinness. Their work will be considered in relation to the plays of Jean Cocteau, Eugene Ionesco, Luigi Pirandello, Georg Kaiser, Bertolt Brecht and Harold Pinter. Attention will be drawn to important movements in European drama of the 20th century, including surrealism, expressionism and absurdism. The module examines ideas of meta-theatre, anti-theatre, alienation effect, social critique and representations of mass culture. Among the outcomes intended is a reappraisal of what is meant by political theatre in an Irish context, the bearing of post-coloniality on modern Irish drama and how the notion of theatre as a site of experiment might relate to claims for theatre as national.

205ENG710 Rhetoric, Revolution and Empire: Edmund Burke

This module examines the rhetoric of Ireland’s only political thinker of major renown. The course begins with an analysis of Burke’s aesthetics, studying its relation to works by Mandeville, Hutcheson and Hume. It moves on to examine Burke’s famous reaction to both the American and French Revolutions. The module also studies Burke’s attitude to Empire, paying close attention to his writings on India and Ireland. It closes by examining Burke’s legacy and recurrent re-incarnations in Victorian England, in 19th- and 20th-century Ireland and in America during the Cold War. The module integrates a diverse set of interests, drawing on debates in Irish intellectual history, Enlightenment and Romanticism Studies as well as Post-colonialism.

205ENG711 Poetry in Ireland since 1960

This module examines the relation between poetic forms and cultural/political conditions in Ireland, with consideration also of issues raised by what has been described as a Northern Irish ‘Renaissance’ of poetry in the late 1960s, and of the critical reception of Irish poetry in recent decades. The contemporary poets whose work will be discussed include Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, Medbh McGuckian, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Paul Muldoon, and Ciaran Carson. There will also be scope for consideration of more recent work, such as that by Sinead Morrissey, Justin Quinn and Catriona O’Reilly. Students will have an element of choice in the poets to be considered.

and a Dissertation of up to 15,000 words on an approved topic (double module).Assessment, Practical exercises and essays.

Funding: DEL, AHRC, university funding.

Specific Support Available for International Students: Limited financial assistance may be available.

Opportunities for Careers:Graduates from the School of English MA programme have a good employment record. Professions including publishing, journalism, public relations, teaching, advertising, the civil service, business, industry and the media all recruit from our pool of students while some choose to continue their studies to PhD level, on a chosen, specialised topic, in Irish Literature.

Ph.D.

A person who wishes to proceed to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy must first enrol as an undifferentiated full-time or part-time research student and subsequently apply to register as a Ph.D. candidate. A Ph.D. thesis shall normally be presented within three calendar years of the date of admission as an undifferentiated research student in the case of a full-time student. In the case of a part-time student, a Ph.D. thesis shall normally be presented within six calendar years of the date of admission as an undifferentiated research student. Maximum permitted length for the thesis is normally 80,000 words.  The School Graduate and Research Committee may require that a student for the Ph.D. enrol in and complete a Research Methods module.

Application forms for the Ph.D. are available from here or the School of English. Intending applicants should seek guidance from an appropriate tutor when completing application forms.

PhD candidates are entitled to participate in the series of developmental seminars on Professionalising the PhD in English

M.Phil.

This is a Master's degree by research. A thesis for this degree must normally be submitted within two years (for a full-time student) or four years (for a part-time student) of admission as a research student. Maximum permitted length is normally 50,000 words.   The School Graduate and Research Committee may require that a student for the M.Phil. enrol in and complete a Research Methods module.

Application forms for the M.Phil. are available from here or the School of English. Intending applicants should seek guidance from an appropriate tutor when completing application forms.

Timing

Full-time Ph.D. candidates should aim to complete their research within three years. An extension of one further year may be granted on application to the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities. Full-time M.Phil. candidates should aim to complete their research within two years. You should observe these time restrictions very carefully, as the University and the various postgraduate funding agencies look very strictly at students' failure to meet these imposed deadlines. If you intend to apply for an academic position, one of the things an appointment committee will take into consideration is not only the quality of your work, but your ability to meet deadlines.

Part-time Ph.D. candidates should aim to complete their research within six years of the date of first registration as an undifferentiated research student. Part-time M.Phil. candidates should aim to complete their research within four years.

If for some reason you do not think you will be able to complete your research within the time limits outlined above, you should speak with your supervisor(s), and, if need be, to the Head of Graduate Teaching and Research.

Supervision

All research students should obtain a copy of the University's booklet, "Rules and Regulations Governing Relations between Supervisors and Students" either from their supervisor(s) or from the Academic Council Office.

All research students are assigned at least one supervisor by the Head of Graduate Teaching and Research in consultation with the Graduate and Research Committee. A supervisor should undertake sympathetic direction and careful scrutiny of a student's academic work. The number and frequency of meetings will vary depending on the stage you have reached in your research. However, you should meet with your supervisor(s) at least once a semester. Do not wait for your supervisor(s) to contact you, if you should want to speak to him or her or them. Make an appointment through the School Office, or come to the Office Hour which is clearly displayed outside each supervisor's room.

If you feel that all is not well with your supervision, and feel you cannot raise this difficulty directly with your supervisor(s), you should talk to Dr Philip McGowan, who, as Director of Graduate Education, is responsible for all postgraduate students in the School.

Differentiation

As indicated in the University Calendar, a person who wishes to proceed to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy must first enrol as an undifferentiated full-time or part-time research student and apply subsequently to register as a Ph.D. candidate.

Application for registration as a Ph.D. candidate ("differentiation") should be made not less than six months and not more than eighteen months (twenty-four months in the case of a part-time student) after first enrolment.  In the case of full-time funded students, the School and the Faculty require that doctoral differentiation occur no later than twelve months into the candidate's funding cycle.

The School of English requires undifferentiated research students who intend to apply for registration as Ph.D. students to observe the following procedures:

Apply in the first instance in writing to the supervisor(s). Enclose an outline of the work proposed (about 3000 words in length) and a bibliography of convincing doctoral range and scope. The outline should include the following:

• A progress report on the work you have already done.
• An indication of how you intend to develop the work further.
• A description of the practical methods and theoretical models you intend to employ.
• An estimate of how your work would make an original contribution to your chosen field.

Defend the application to a staff panel that includes at least your supervisor(s), the prospective internal examiner and Head of Graduate Teaching and Research.

Report Forms

The Faculty of Humanities monitors the progress of all research students. To facilitate this, the Faculty requires a report form to be filled out at the end of each academic year.

Subject Advisers

The School has initiated a system of Subject Advisers for postgraduate students. These advisers, who are the programme convenors for the various taught M.A.s in the School are as follows:

Professor Mark Burnett
Reconceiving the Renaissance

Professor Brian Caraher
Modern Literary Studies

Mr Daragh Carville
Creative Writing

Dr Eamonn Hughes
Irish Writing

Dr John Kirk
English Language and Linguistics

Professor John Thompson
Medieval Studies

Should you feel that there is any issue regarding your research or the nature of your supervision that you would not wish to raise directly with your supervisor(s) you should feel free to discuss this matter in confidence with any of the members of staff listed above.

Teaching

There may be opportunities for research students in their second or later years of research to do some limited number of hours of part-time teaching in the School. You should discuss this with your supervisor(s). Formal application for such part-time teaching must be made in writing to the Head of the School.

Further queries may be directed to Dr Philip McGowan, Director of  Graduate Teaching and Research.

For information on PGR studentships for 2007-08, please refer to the Postgraduate Office at http://www.qub.ac.uk/home/Research/PostgraduateOffice/.